course, but I didn’t think about . . . other things, her body, the way most men would.”
“And that’s why you protect women, by killing all the bad men.” Hen realized how sarcastic her words sounded, but didn’t mind.
“Yes,” he said. “If there’s a man who has badly hurt a woman, and who will probably do it again, I don’t mind killing him.”
“You don’t mind it?” Hen laughed.
“Right. It’s not that I like it. Well, I do like it sometimes after I’ve done it. But the initial impulse . . . what allows me to kill someone in the first place . . . is that I don’t mind it. It’s a big difference.”
“Lloyd’s not a cheater,” Hen said.
“Okay.”
“I don’t want you to hurt him. Ever. Okay?”
Matthew’s face was serious. He said, “I’m going to stop, actually. That’s what you want me to do, right? That’s why you agreed to meet me yesterday. You think that if you can’t convince the police to lock me up, then you can convince me to stop killing people.”
“That was part of it,” Hen said. “I also just wanted to hear what you had to say. It’s a strange relationship, you being able to tell me what you want, and me unable to tell anyone.”
“It is. It’s very strange. It’s liberating for me.”
“How many men have you killed?” Hen asked.
Matthew slid back in his rocker and picked at the sleeve of his sweater. “I don’t want to talk about that right now.”
“Okay.”
“I want to talk more about my brother.”
“Okay.”
“Have I mentioned him to you before?”
“Just now you did.”
Matthew looked confused, like he’d already forgotten the words he’d just said.
“You said he’s like your father.”
“Richard is, not me,” he said, and something about his phrasing made Hen feel suddenly nervous.
“In what way?” Hen asked.
“He’s like my father, except that . . . as I said, he doesn’t really spend a lot of time with people, besides me, so I never think of him as being dangerous.”
“What does he do?”
“Richard? God, nothing. He says he’s trying to write a book, but I’ll believe it when I see it. Mira doesn’t know, but I support him, financially. I’ve supported him for years. He’s sick, just in his head, but now . . . I’m worried that he might be starting to act out, that he’s getting braver—”
“You think he’s hurt someone?”
“He might have,” Matthew said, and Hen could tell he was holding back on her. “And I think he might hurt someone else. That’s how it works with people like us. We’re fine for a while, but then we get a taste of what it’s like to take a life, and it’s like a door opening, and you can never shut it again, not really. So at least I was able to control it by only killing men that deserved to die, but that’s not how Richard’s mind works. He’s like my father. He wants to hurt innocent women.”
“Maybe you should go to the police.”
Matthew clenched his teeth. “I’ve thought about it, I really have, but you have to understand. He’s still my brother. We survived our childhood together. I don’t know if I can do it to him. I don’t think he’d do well in prison.”
It had stopped raining, but the clouds had gotten darker, and Hen didn’t see the man walking down the street, then turning at their driveway, until he was coming up the steps toward the screen door. For one surreal second she thought it was Matthew’s brother, but the door swung open and Lloyd stepped onto the porch, looking from Hen to Matthew on the rocking chair.
“Hello,” he said.
“You’re early,” Hen said, before she could stop herself.
“You didn’t get my text?”
“Oh, no. My phone’s inside.”
Matthew stood up, and Lloyd turned toward him. “Hi, Matthew,” he said.
“Hi, Lloyd. I just dropped over a few minutes ago. Trying to clear the air, you know?”
Lloyd turned toward Hen and raised his eyebrows. “Okay?”
“I should go, though,” Matthew said. “Nice talking with you, Hen. Nice seeing you, Lloyd.”
He pushed his way through the screen door and walked rapidly to his own house.
Lloyd, still looking at Hen, said, “What the fuck was that about?”
“You’re having an affair with Joanna Grimlund,” Hen replied.
Chapter 30
Back in his office, his sweater damp and his heart still pumping from the sudden appearance of Hen’s husband, Matthew looked again at the envelope his brother had left him. It was still there, as were the keys attached to the plastic M. He’d tried